Lines in Euclidean Space
by misscam
Summary: Of Grissom and Sara, Catherine and Warrick  and pain, loss, love, happiness and coupling, how to build a life and how to keep one. [CGR, CWR, GSR]
1. equidistant

Lines in Euclidean Space  
by Camilla Sandman

Disclaimer: CSI is CBS's property. I'm just taking it for a joyride - and definitely not making any money.

Author's Note: I've taken some liberties with the various backstories for the characters. If something openly contradicts Canon, forgive me - I've probably gotten it all jumbled in my head. Spoilers up to and including series seven. Much thanks to mingsmommy for beta. :)

II

The first time Gil Grissom meets Catherine Flynn-later-to-be-Willows she isn't naked, but she wears her clothes as a second skin, so exposed he wonders if it's an armor too. There's defiance in her pose - probably she knows already that she's being talked about. What she did for a living before. How long she might last here. How she got the job. If she's kept all her g-strings. If she'll puke at her first autopsy. How much trouble she'll be. How much trouble she'll be worth. Who the first guy she turns down will be. Who she will sleep with.

Grissom has theories for all of them, and in the end, he's only wrong about one. 

II

_(equidistant)_

(Of Catherine and Grissom - and Eddie and Lyndsey, silence and skin, what can be settled for and how people can be right for each other without being meant for each other.)

II

Catherine Flynn isn't sure if Gil Grissom has seen her naked. He might've, if he's the type to go to strip joints. He doesn't seem it, but what humans seem like and what humans are - that's altogether different things. She knows that, at least.

"Catherine," he greets her with, her first name strangely less familiar on his lips than everyone else's use of her last name. Grissom is friendly, but she can't imagine his friends. He's just... Man in the moon.

"Gil," she says. First name for first name. They will be equal, she knows, or this won't work at all.

He breathes for a moment, then just seems to let it bounce off.

"Welcome to CSI," he says.

Welcome to change, she thinks.

II

Skin, that's the thing. Live skin isn't like dead skin, is the first thing Catherine learns at her new job. Alive, skin feels like protection. She never minded wearing no clothes - she still had her skin, and it was shield enough. Dead, skin tells stories. Dead, it reveals. How a victim might've died. How a victim lived. Who the victim was - little lines in skin, the telltale fingerprints.

"Victim's been dead 24 hours," Doctor Peters says, looking at her with a little smile that manages to be both condescending and speculative. He's probably one of those betting she'll puke.

"Cause of death?" she asks instead, meeting his gaze with a speculative of her own.

"Gunshot to the temple. Close range. There are traces of gunpowder."

"Sexual assault?"

He shakes his head. Not that then, and she wonders if feeling glad is something she can afford to in the long run. So. Jenny Jason was not raped. Just killed. Just.

"Thanks, doc," she says after a moment, and she can already tell his ego swells as fast as other parts of him. She knows he's got a pool on how fast she'll sleep with him, and that his bet is a month.

"Any time, Miss Flynn. Any time."

Any time never, she knows, and has already decided how to turn him down.

II

"Good work," Captain Brass says, and Catherine lets it fill her. "How did you know the gun would be there?"

"Easy," she tells him, watching Fred Jason being lead away. "No guy like him would risk his own car being damaged, even to conceal a murder weapon. But his dead wife's?"

"You know his type?" Brass asks, eyebrow slightly raised and interest slightly piqued, she can tell.

"Captain," she says, raising her eyebrow right back at him, "I know everyone's type."

Brass laughs and she laughs, because it's her first, because she's cracked it, because she's ahead now, because she finally thinks she can do this.

II

Eddie isn't a gentle lover. Rough, edgy, driven, energetic; sex as war and never any winner. Never quite peace either. She didn't look for it - from the first glance he gave her, she knew that wasn't an option. Lust was. Sex was. Something like understanding. Two fighters. Just different fights they've fought for life.

She was a stripper. He was a bad egg. Match made in Las Vegas.

"Fuck yeah," Eddie says, rolling off her. He's still a bad egg. It's she who is changing.

"Eddie," she says to his back, watching the lines from her nails redden. "I'm pregnant."

In the silence, the only thing she can think of is her mother's face, motherhood etched into skin.

II

She's late for work three days in a row, but Grissom says nothing. She isn't sure if he doesn't notice or if he just doesn't comment. It's not that he's not observant. It's just he's usually observing something in a world beyond the one she walks in. Bugs, philosophers and the dead. She wonders if it's much of a company.

She's beginning to wonder a lot of things, really.

"Gil, what do you do on your time off?" she asks suddenly, five minutes into his entomology timeline that will probably crack the case - unless she does first, of course.

He pauses for a moment, but if he takes offense or not, he can't say. "I read."

"Do you ever go out?"

He looks distinctly uncomfortable now, even taking his glasses off hesitantly. "Are you asking me out, Catherine?"

"Yeah," she says hurriedly. "To my wedding. On Saturday."

"Oh," he says. "Right."

She's not sure if she's inviting him into her world or asking him to share his.

II

Catherine Flynn becomes Catherine Willows in a 24-hour chapel, ring cheap and dress low-cut. She knows some might think it tacky. She also knows she doesn't care.

There isn't a huge crowd, but there is enough. Friends, some of whom she actually likes. Relatives, her mother included unexpectedly. Work colleagues, people she would trust her life to. People she's reasonably sure would wish her well, even if they might question her wisdom in choice of groom.

Eddie. 

Eddie and Catherine and baby on board. Family. She's got a job and Eddie will finally keep one, he's promised. It's not a childhood fantasy, but she's willing to settle. It's good enough. It's...

"Congratulations," Grissom says from the back.

Yeah. It's something worthy of one.

II

She pukes for the first time on the job five months pregnant. It's not a body that does it. It's what once was one, before it had a meeting with a chainsaw.

"Cath?" Grissom says quietly behind her. "I can handle this one."

Tempting, she knows. All weakness is.

"No," she says, wiping her mouth and thinking of coffee. "Thanks, Gil."

It isn't that he would think less of her, she knows. He wouldn't. It's that she would.

II

Birth isn't magical. It's painful and exhausting and too many people. Nurses. Doctors. People telling her to push, people declaring it a girl, people declaring how proud she must be, people, people, people.

It's the silence after, when they've all left and it's just her and the little baby, _her _baby. Her daughter, eyes closed and sleeping and silent, so silent.

That. That is magical and Catherine cries as soundlessly as she manages, feeling five little fingers clutch her one.

"Hi," she whispers, pressing a kiss against newborn skin. "Hi, baby."

Tomorrow will be worries and work issues and Eddie's latest failure, now of deeper consequence, but tonight there's just this. Catherine Willows. Plus one.

II

She comes back to work to find Peters has left. Couldn't take the job anymore, apparently. Which means she's won the pool. She knows he lost the second one on her when she stayed beyond two months.

It makes buying a rattle with the money all the sweeter.

II

She takes Lyndsey with her sometimes when she works late. Little Lyndsey Willows, darling of the crime lab. Grissom never complains, but she can tell he would prefer a tarantula. But that's all right. Grissom prefers a tarantula to just about anything, she thinks.

He still smiles at Lyndsey. Still lets her chew on plastic hands Catherine doesn't even want to know why he keeps in a fridge. He could be a good father. She's just not so sure he'd be a good husband.

Only later she wonders why he never asks why she isn't going home to Eddie in the evenings.

II

Eddie cheats on her.

She's suspected a while, but she knows the day she finds his soiled underwear, still smelling of perfume. It doesn't take a crime scene investigator to do the math, but she still takes advantage of being one and have the evidence analyzed. Semen and vaginal fluids. Not hers.

Eddie is cheating, and she tells him.

"Of course I am, Catherine!" he snaps, venom in his voice to match hers. "You're spending all your time fucking Gil Grissom! I've got needs!"

"You've got your dick and you think with it!" she snaps back.

She lets him fuck her with her later, because it's a marriage, because she wants to forgive him, because Lindsey is sleeping and it's a relationship with more than two now. She can forgive for Lindsey. She can.

The first time.

II

"I'm divorcing Eddie," she tells Grissom a Tuesday, and he doesn't look surprised. "Lindsey will understand. I hope, at least."

"I do," Grissom says, picking up a bug with a pair of tweezers and looking pleased. At the bug or her, she isn't sure.

"You know he's been cheating," she states flatly.

"Yeah."

She doesn't ask how. Not today. She will soon enough, she knows, and then she'll berate him for not telling her.

"He thinks I'm divorcing him over you. 'Knows' we have something."

Grissom nods distractedly. "Easier to blame you than himself, Cath."

"Yeah, I know," she says. She does know. She does.

Doesn't mean Eddie can't know as well.

II

Eddie always knew they had a thing. He just never understood what the thing was.

The thing is work. The sex is just a bonus.

He fucks her nothing like Eddie did, because Eddie knew her body and Grissom is discovering it. She almost feels like one of his experiments, as he adjusts slightly a few times, trying to angle his thrusts better and then, then he finds the right approach and the sound she makes in the back of her throat sounds nothing like her.

Not quite Catherine and not quite Grissom and not quite what she imagined, but she's always gone with what life has given her.

In the morning, she's the one to leave. But she still seems him at work, and that's as it should be.

II

She walks in on Lyndsey and Eddie one day. They're laughing, Lindsey's fingers in Eddie's hair as he's swinging her round and round and round until Catherine is the one who feels dizzy. Twosome, she thinks. She and Lindsey is one. She forgot Lindsey and Eddie was one too. Twosome.

She vaguely hears Lindsey calling for her and knows there was never a choice.

"Yeah, baby," she says, looking at Eddie and feeling his eyes stroke her skin. "I'm coming."

II

She knows Grissom has heard the gossip even before she steps into his office. He looks guarded, but beyond that it's hard to tell.

"We're going to try again. For Lindsey," she says and he just nods. "It's not... It's not you."

He nods, just once, but says nothing.

They're never going to be meant for each other, she feels and knows he'll always be there anyway.

II

Catherine is promoted. The money comes in handy, but it is the pride that matters the most. She stands in the locker room and lets it fill her. Catherine Willows. Mother. Wife. CSI level three. Former stripper, because she left shame behind the moment she took off her clothes and she refuses to take it up again now.

Catherine Willows. She feels proud of that. She does. She's not going to renounce the name even if her husband has cheated and she thinks he might be again. No. She is what she is.

Tomorrow, Grissom comes back from San Francisco and she knows he has a promotion waiting too. Still equals. All this way and still that. Maybe that's what's wrong with her and Eddie. She moved on with life. He didn't. It's uneven.

It's not working. It won't work, not even for Lindsey.

She smiles at her own reflection and walks home to Eddie not home and a decision four years delayed.

Yeah. It's time to stop settling.

II

The first time Warrick Brown meets Catherine Willows she's married and he's a gambler. It's not a match made in heaven. It won't be a match made in anything for a long time. It's going to be colleagues and friends and complicated and distance and fucking,and then, then it will be a match made in life.

It's got better odds to make it that way. 


	2. transversal

_(transversal)_

(Of Grissom, Catherine and Warrick - and Sara and Eddie, letting go and holding on, hedging a bet and how complicated simple can be.)

II

Warrick Brown knows a poker face when he sees one and Catherine Willows doesn't have one. She thinks she has, he can tell, but she what she has is confidence. It's a different thing, even if it can still disguise the cards on her hand sometimes. Grissom doesn't have one either - he has masks, all of them disguises but all of them possible to remove. Nick, oh Nick can forget it. Too much heart in his eyes. Brass doesn't cut it either - enjoys being a dealer too much.

It's Robbins who's got it. Grandfatherly, smiling Albert Robbins who sees more than he says and can read people even when they're dead. Know people. The cards are secondary. That's how to play poker.

Warrick's still learning to.

II

It's a bar. Warrick isn't getting drunk; he doesn't need to. He's got other ways of having demons. Alcohol is just booze. He drinks it more because he can and stay in control still. Control, that's the thing. 

He thought he had it.

Now Holly is dead, Sidle is staying and he has his grandmother's voice in his head, saying nothing. She wouldn't, he knows. If he lost his job and killed a colleague, she would just look at him and still love him, but he would know he didn't deserve it.

Guilt. He doesn't need others to blame him when he feels it strong enough himself.

"Rough day," Catherine says. He isn't sure why she is there, except he asked and she agreed and they're friends and sometimes, sometimes silence is better with two.

'I left her alone,' he wants to say.

'I convinced her to stay in this job,' she'll probably counter.

Guilt. It holds on. Maybe they'll learn to let go together.

"Rough day," he agrees, and clinks his bottle against hers.

II

Work defines a guy. CSI Brown can't 'return favours'. CSI Brown can't date a drug user. CSI Brown can't let work just be something he does for a living.

Warrick's starting to think CSI Brown isn't just something Grissom has pushed him towards.

II

Catherine doesn't like Sara yet and Sara doesn't like Warrick and Warrick doesn't like Brass and Brass doesn't like the Sheriff and the Sheriff doesn't like Grissom and Grissom doesn't like Ecklie and Ecklie doesn't like anyone.

Sara does like Grissom and Grissom likes Brass and Brass likes Nick and Nick likes Greg and Greg likes Sara and Sara likes Nick and Nick likes Warrick and Warrick likes Catherine and Catherine likes Grissom and Grissom likes Sara.

It holds together.

Sort of.

II

"I could kill Eddie," Catherine says, hands on her hips and rage on her face.

"No," Warrick says, calmly leaning against the doorframe and watching her heart in her eyes. They tell him too much. "You couldn't."

He's not entirely convinced he couldn't.

II

"You seen Catherine?" Grissom asks, eyes on dead bugs and mind on dead bodies. Warrick can tell whatever he answers will be answered with 'good'. Grissom is solving a case.

"Yeah, in the locker room seducing Sara," he answers casually, because 'having another fighty with Eddie' is the the truth that she probably doesn't want advertised. 

"Good," Grissom says, carefully pining up another fly in his long, orderly line. "Ten days. You were right, Warrick. Good job."

Two words to feel king and submissive at the same time.

"I knew the brother was a good bet," Warrick says. "I'll tell Catherine." 

"Tell Catherine," Grissom agrees, before his brain finally seems to catch up with what went on while the screensaver was on. "... what?"

II

Murder, death and the grieving - they're all used to dealing with them, almost like a casual friend. But every time it strikes close, it's a reacquaintance all over again.

Warrick doesn't grieve Eddie, but Catherine does. Not just for Lyndsey, he thinks. Not just, because nothing is that simple.

Eddie Willows leaves a child. Warrick Brown has nothing but flesh and bones to leave for Grissom's beloved maggots.

He begins to think about that.

II

Sara and Warrick will never be best friends, he knows. It's just not in the cards, not with the deal of the hand given.

But there is something. Not what he has with Nick. Definitely not what he has with Catherine. Not what he has with Grissom, and he's never sure if she envies that or not. Not what he has with Brass either, outright hostility gone to begrudging camaraderie.

Just something. With some barbs.

"Oh, come on, you can't possibly excuse murder!" Sara says hotly.

"All I said was that I understood his motivation, not his actions," he counters, calm to her passion. "Come on, Sara. Have you never wanted something so bad you would do anything to get it?"

"I wouldn't kill for anyone," she says firmly, eyes dark.

He wonders.

II

He meets Tina. He likes Tina. He dates Tina. He sleeps with Tina. It's Tina and Warrick, Warrick and Tina, and it works. It's simple. Nothing to wonder about.

Nick almost dies, and Warrick makes it simpler. Something to leave behind. Something to put to his life. Something to write on a tombstone. 

Husband. Tina's Warrick now.

It gets a bit more complicated from there.

II

He didn't consider Catherine.

Sure, he _has _fantasized about Catherine - in a car, in an elevator, in the morgue, on his desk, on Grissom's desk, against a slot machine - but that's just... She's _Catherine. _And she's wrong. The great thing about fantasies is that it doesn't need possibilities.

He can just about believe that, if he fantasizes really hard.

II

"You seen Sara?" Grissom says, and Warrick looks up from his blood-stained clothes, feeling a brief moment of amusement.

"I think she's talking to Brass," he replies. "Like you asked her to. Ten minutes ago."

"Oh," Grissom says, face a mask all too easy to peel away. "Good."

Grissom likes Sara and Sara likes Grissom and Warrick knows complicated when he sees it now.

He still rather likes their odds.

II

"Neglect," Robbins says, turning the body back over.

"Neglect as killer," Warrick replies, shaking his head a little. Not in disbelief. The evidence is clear enough. It's more that it even had to come to that. 

"Yes. People, friendship, marriage. Massacre with less blood," Robbins replies calmly, looking at him with old eyes. "No heart in it."

Warrick's going to be a killer real soon, he can feel.

II

"I'm getting a divorce," he tells Nick, and Nick doesn't even blink.

"I know."

It turns out Tina knows too and beats him to it. 

II

Fucking Catherine - oh yeah, they're fucking. This isn't making love. He's got her faced against a wall, her fingers clutching at wallpapered leaves as his hands are already up her skirt; he can feel naked thigh against his fingers and his teeth scratch her collarbone and the sweat of his chest sticks to the skin of her back, glistening and he tries to remember if he managed to yank his shirt off before or after they got in the door and hopes it wasn't in the cab already and oh yeah, this is fucking.

Making love can wait until he's certain he's ready to get fucked over by it again, he decides.II

"And now what?" he asks, Catherine in his bed after their third night, clean sheets he'd bought just two weeks before. A clean slate. When you get a possibility, it stops being a fantasy and becomes a beginning. 

"Just now," she says, and in the streaming sunlight she looks almost young as he considers her. Warrick and Catherine. Yeah. Just now.

It holds together. Just enough.

II

The first time Sara Sidle meets Gil Grissom he's a teacher and she is learning and she already knows she can love this man. It's not love at first sight. It's love at first thought, a meeting of minds even when he keeps distance close, like an intimate friend. He isn't a mirror to her - her intimate friend is something else - but it's a reflection close enough that she feels it almost blinding. She knows what others will say, but it won't be true. He isn't like her father and she refuses to be her mother. She won't kill for him. She won't.

She just might live for him.

II


End file.
